


under my umbrella

by banditchika



Category: Love Live! School Idol Project
Genre: F/F, or: eli nearly loses her life to an umbrella and one nico yazawa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-01
Updated: 2016-11-01
Packaged: 2018-08-28 08:41:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8438941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/banditchika/pseuds/banditchika
Summary: Just Dance isn’t a game. It’s a lifestyle. A challenge. An Ayase family tradition.And today, she wants to share that with Nico.





	

“We are not doing this,” Nico snaps, dangling upside-down from the couch with no regard to how her skirt falls against her thighs. Her face is ruddy from the blood rushing to her head, making the scowl scrunching up her face look even more comical. Eli, who very much wants Nico to agree with her in this moment, pointedly avoids mentioning how much she resembles an overripe tomato with pigtails.

“It’s not that bad, Nico. Please?” Eli asks, holding the Wii remote out for Nico to take. Nico squints at her. Eli wiggles the remote. Nico’s eyes narrow to dark little slits. Eli flutters her lashes and laughs when Nico finally smiles, the faintest flash of teeth against her flushed skin.

“Well, fine, if you reaaaaally want to.” Nico breaks first and scrambles to a sitting position, graceless, inelegant. The couch groans when she stands, rusty springs creaking beneath its worn upholstery. “Just… don’t break anything, yeah?”

Eli beams at Nico, and impulsively presses a kiss onto her reddened cheek. “Thank you, Nico.”

“Aw, hey–” Nico flips her hair, snatching the remote from Eli’s hands. “Aren’t you a little too excited for this? I’m just being a good girlfriend! You keep acting so grateful, and people will think that Nico, the great idol of love, never does anything cool with you! Which is like, mega inaccurate because I’m the best and you’re pretty great, so together we’re perfect!”

Eli’s tongue pokes out of her mouth as Nico rambles on. She’s not really listening, but she knows Nico doesn’t really expect her to. Nico needs these moments, where she’s allowed to speak her mind without anyone interrupting her.

And besides, Eli isn’t going to turn down a compliment from her girlfriend, no matter how roundabout it is.

The Wii’s cursor on the television is a little shaky when the game screen loads, but Eli manages to maneuver it over to the song she wants. She normally isn’t one for video games, but Just Dance isn’t a game. It’s a lifestyle. A challenge. An Ayase family tradition.

And today, she wants to share that with Nico.

The game chirps out a peppy, “Let’s dance!” when Eli clicks the song–Nico’s head snaps up, eyes sparking with the beginnings of competitive flare despite the vexation pinching her brow.

“So we’re really doing this?” At Eli’s nod, Nico jerks her chin towards a nearby broom closet. “Fine, fine. They’re in there.”

“Harasho~” Eli sings, pulling a pair of umbrellas from the closet. A feather duster brushes against the top of her head and she ducks out hurriedly, so busy swiping at her hair that she almost hits herself with an umbrella handle. “Ick.”

Nico cackles at her, kneeling before the broom closet and spitting out imaginary dust particles, but the way she brushes off the crown of Eli’s head is pure tenderness. Nico is a phenomenon of contrasts–sweet and sharp, brittle and brilliant. Eli loves her dearly, and can hardly hold back the torrent of saccharine sayings that threaten to pour from her lips.

“Anyways!” Nico tugs an umbrella from Eli’s hand, poking at her cheek until she can’t help but smile. “Are we doing this, Elichika, or are ya gonna leave me hanging?”

“Of course.” There isn’t much room in the Yazawa family’s living room, but Eli manages to slide into a space clear enough to dance. She squeezes Nico’s hip as she passes and gets an umbrella handle to the side for her troubles. “Okay, I’m starting it–now!”

The silhouette of a woman appears on the screen, leaning forward on a folded umbrella. Nico mimics her, intensity simmering through her frame, and Eli’s so busy looking at her that she nearly misses the first move.

A quick glance at her remote to make sure that it’s properly strapped to her wrist, and the competition truly begins.

“You’re joking,” Nico groans, twirling inexpertly along with the virtual dancer. Eli careens to the side to avoid the tip of her umbrella, a dreaded ‘Bad’ dropping her score just enough that the first place crown flickers over Nico’s icon instead. Nico’s movements become wider, more emotive, as if the game could score her enthusiasm. “Oh, wait–Ha! Keep up, Ayase! Nico-Nii, pulling into first place!”

“Don’t get too confident, Nico, I’m not out of the race just yet.“ Or, so she says, but Nico is pulling further and further ahead. Eli’s tall; her limbs are long, and her umbrella is too, and there’s just not enough space in the living room for two people, both wildly waving umbrellas and stepping, spinning, swaying.

So it’s no surprise, really, when Nico almost brains Eli with her umbrella handle.

Eli barely has time to dive to the ground before the umbrella swings around again, a lethal instrument in Nico’s hands. She abandons her own umbrella; drops her remote and crawls to safety behind the couch, away from Nico’s deadly dancing. 

Nico is too caught up in the motion of the game to notice that she had nearly beheaded her own girlfriend. In her enthusiasm, Nico has abandoned the grace and poise she usually exhibits during Lives–she stumbles about, limbs flying about like branches rattling in the wind. Her eyes are fixed to the cascade of “good,” “okay,” and “perfects” flashing at the top of the screen.

Nico looks ridiculous. Eli thinks she might have a coughing fit from how hard she chokes down her laughter. It’s so like Nico to drag her feet about something, only to throw her heart and soul into it. Affection wells up in Eli’s chest as she watches Nico stumble, warmth blooming across the expanse of her heart like an unfurling umbrella.

The imagery is so strong that for a moment, Eli imagines she can hear metal scraping against plastic and the snap of cloth–

And then she realizes, yes, she is actually hearing that.

“Aa-aa-aa-u-u-gh!” A long, wailing cry of shock and frustration. Nico staggers, unbalanced, fumbling for the spring holding the umbrella open. Her Wii remote, with the strap dutifully wound around her wrist, smacks against her forearm. Some small part of Eli’s brain notes the glowing ‘X’s under Nico’s icon flaring in time to the ones under her own, even as she gawks at how Nico twists to close the umbrella. “Eli, Eli! The game, pause the game!”

“You’re worrying about the game now?” The remnants of her restraint collapse. Eli laughs, inelegant, uncontrollable, shaking so hard that she can hardly breathe. “Oh, Nico, of all the things to be concerned about–!”

“What? I’m not a quitter!” Two years of failure and a lifetime of doggedly chasing her dreams have more than proved that. The thought sobers Eli, just enough for her to stand and take a huge, wheezing breath. “C’mon Eli, get it together–”

“I,” Eli grabs the couch to ground herself. “I’m trying, I’m trying…”

“Gah! The gold move!” The little golden figure creeps across the bottom of the screen–the virtual woman’s silhouette begins to shine, and Eli knows what Nico is about to do. “No way–I’m not gonna lose now!”

And then Nico–Eli’s beloved, rambunctious, willful Nico–swings her open umbrella. The lattice beneath the stretched cloth flips, and the umbrella inverts. Nico stumbles, pivots, tumbles to the ground, and with one last cry, thrusts her arms out to the side with her leg extended into the air.

The dancer on the screen, in the exact same pose as Nico but with the benefit of being upright, flashes gold.

Eli is beside herself with laughter when Nico crows her triumph. The other girl is totally oblivious to the fact that the song continues on for a good half-minute after the gold move, instead preoccupying herself with self-congratulation.

“See that Eli? That’s distilled _spirit._ ” Nico jabs a finger at the screen. Her cheeks are flushed, the twin shelves of her teeth pressed together in a broad grin. Eli is giggling so hard that silent tears stream down her face. She can feel abdominal muscles with enough definition to rival Umi’s beginning to form. Nico looks so, so proud of herself.

“You’re amazing, Nico.” Eli claps for her, and Nico points her nose in the air. 

“Thanks. That’s ‘nuff of this for now, though.” Nico tugs her wrist strap over her hand, tossing the remote onto the couch. “I’d hate to break your other high scores on this game, y’know?”

“If it meant that I could see you dancing…” A laugh cuts her sentence short. “D-dancing like that again, I wouldn’t mind at all.”

“You’re awful sweet sometimes, Elichika.” Nico picks up her umbrella, stroking a hand over its insides. She fumbles with the mechanisms. “Oh, shit. Don’t tell me I broke it!”

“Let me see?” Nico grunts, stubborn and disagreeable. Eli reaches over her shoulders regardless, hands fanning out to rest over Nico’s. “Okay, pull together–one, two!”

The runner clicks, and the umbrella reverts, snapping shut.

“Not too shabby.” Nico leans against Eli’s chest and doesn’t even protest when Eli loops her arms around her waist. She lets the umbrella drop to the ground, and Eli tugs her even closer to murmur in her ear.

“Did you have fun?” A strand of Nico’s silky hair brushes Eli’s cheek, and she resists the urge to twist a pigtail around her finger. “I thought you did.”

“Well–guess it wasn’t as weird as I thought it’d be. Definitely won’t be letting my siblings play with umbrellas, though.” Eli laughs and indulges herself with a kiss to Nico’s temple, sighing when the other girl swipes a thumb over the back of Eli’s knuckles. “But.”

“But?”

“Only two stars? Come on, we can do better than that!” Nico’s shoulders jerk, an aborted motion to throw her hands into the air. “We’re school idols! We have this dancing thing down.”

“Is it reasonable to expect that we can dance with actual umbrellas, though?” Eli muses. Nico shrugs.

“Hey, the original dancer did it, right? If she could, so can we!” Nico twirls herself out of Eli’s grasp, snatching Eli’s discarded remote and umbrella from the floor. “One more time–one more.”

“I’ll win,” Eli warns. Nico holds out the umbrella, waggles the handle and her eyebrows tauntingly. Closer, the gesture says. Come closer, closer. “Arisa and I are masters of this game.”

“Yeah, well. It’s time for a new leader on that scoreboard!” Nico scoops up her own remote and umbrella once Eli has taken her place. This time, she makes sure that the strap has bound the umbrella shut. “Ready? Alright–three, two, one–!

“Game, start!”

**Author's Note:**

> happy belated birthday eli, and happy halloween! what does this have to do with halloween, you ask?? nothing. i hope you all enjoyed!


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